


Ride or Die on a Butterfly

by Planet_Hunter



Series: One Touch [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Butterflies, Cemetery, Dammit Jeremy!, Gen, Moms amiright?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Planet_Hunter/pseuds/Planet_Hunter
Summary: Set post 2:1 - Jeremy visits the cemetery to say goodbye to his mom before moving to Purgatory and has an encounter with an unlikely visitor.





	Ride or Die on a Butterfly

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little speculation on a possible Jeremy origin story. We’ve had these tantalizing hints scattered throughout the series and I just sat down and vomited 1000’s of words to see what might come out. Multiple cuts later this is the result. I hope it makes sense. It’s really not what I intended to write, but you should all blame Jeremy for that.
> 
> Trigger warnings I guess? I wouldn’t say this is a deep exploration of the nature of death or anything but death is mentioned and it is set in a cemetery so I guess just keep that in mind if you have recent bereavements or sensitivity around the issue. I said goodbye to my Gran two years ago and I still haven’t really let her go. Writing this was really helpful, but it may not be the best thing to read. I won’t be offended if you skip it.

Jeremy loved visiting the cemetery.

Well, actually he hated it and would procrastinate visits like Axl Rose recording a new GnR album, but once he actually got there he remembered the peace he often found in the quietness. His usually busy ‘superbrain’ muted. Complex problems muffled themselves, like BBC actors stumbling through a period drama.

‘Peaceful’ was not a state he often found himself in, not without some form of ‘medicinal’ help at least. Perhap it was more accurate to say that Jeremy loved the feeling of peace he could sometimes attain by being here.

But not today.

He was dressed head to toe in black government issue ‘all-weather gear. It was a stark contrast to his customary look of hoodie plus laboratory coat. He also contrasted with the environment, as the cemetery had shrouded itself in pristine white snow. The rows of grave markers jutted out like ‘Guess Who’ board characters waiting to be flipped down, but Jeremy was only interested in this one. His own surname emblazoned across the top in large cursive font - ‘CHETRI’.

“‘ _Here lies…’ the body of my mother_ ” Jeremy sighed to himself.

As a scientist, Jeremy knew there was no life after death. The body simply ceased to function and dissolved back into elements deep underground. Gravestones were amassed in cemeteries like some sort of mad philatelists collection, segregating the living from the dead in a socially-acceptable apartheid. There was nothing of use or substance here, but it never stopped Jeremy from the compulsion to visit and talk.

He set about clearing some snow at the foot of the grave, and unfolded a cheap camping chair. He flopped his slight frame down, readying himself for a difficult conversation. Scratch that. A difficult monologue.

“Hi Mom…” Jeremy said aloud. “I ahhh, I need to tell you something. Something reeeeeally important…” He paused for a good minute after this tentative start. His social anxiety should have kicked in by now. It would usually ramp up his havering, leading to more fast-paced verbal diarrhoea.

“George R. R. Martin still hasn’t published the ‘Winds of Winter’, Dylan never called me back and I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to the dye they put in printer paper now...” And there it was.

“Ahhh… This is so stupid.” He sighed as he gathered his not inconsiderable, but often hidden courage. “I’m… moving away, Mom. For Black Badge.”

He felt ridiculous talking aloud to no-one, but he knew why he had to do it. He recalled an awkward conversation he’d had with his mom not long before the accident that claimed her life. Jeremy had been moping around her laboratory at Black Badge, getting in the way of her work instead of helping like he normally would.

As secretive government gigs went, his mom had scored a pretty sweet deal. Jeremy was getting the best pre-college education possible by being allowed to help set-up experiments and equipment. But he still didn’t know what she was actually working on. He just knew that it sometimes left a haunted look in her eyes when he asked questions or suggested lines of enquiry she shut down before he could develop them further.

It bothered him that he didn’t know more and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his mom was only ever two steps away from something dangerous. It bothered him that it wouldn’t be long before he wasn’t there any more to watch out for her.

“What’s wrong son?” his Mom had eventually asked with a resigned sigh. His incessant spinning in her office chair was about to tip her over the edge, like Brandon Stark out a window.

Jeremy tried to open with a deflection, telling her that he’d finally found the courage to talk to his long-standing crush, which to understate the matter to a truly stupendous degree, had not gone well.

“Ah, so, I’m not into Brad anymore. I asked him out yesterday… and… well, he said ‘No’. Actually, he said ‘Fuck off’ and some other alliterative things” Jeremy could see his mom giving him ‘The Look’. He didn’t get a chance to continue. He had known exactly what she was about to say in interruption, his lips following along with the first sentence as she’d said the words.

“I am you mother, now you listen to me.” She predictably started off. Her next words however absolutely floored him. “That boy is an aggravating little shit and has never been worthy of your attention. I know this because I met his parents. You know, I gave them nicknames the instant they opened their mouths? They will always be ‘Dumbass Two’ and ‘Dumbass Prime’ to me. I’ve always thought of Brad as ‘Baby Dumbass.’ But maybe I’ll think of him as Duke dumbass dingleberry douche-nozzle from now on, seeing as alliteration is his thing?”

Jeremy’s mouth had sunk lower than a bass drop on a Kanye track.

“Look, life is too short for bad friendships and bad relationships with people who don’t deserve to get to know you.” she continued. “You’re leaving for college soon. The rest of your life is about to begin and opportunities will be hitting you left, right and centre. There is no room in your life for ‘genus dumbass’” she said with a wry smile.

In truth Jeremy hadn’t been as bothered by Brad’s very public rejection of his bumbling advances as he perhaps should have been. He’d never tried to hide who he was but he had been trying to hide how much he didn’t want to leave home, despite the obvious advantages to leaving for college. His outing was merely an accelerant for the sadness he had been struggling with when he thought about leaving her for no better reason than to do something for himself. Particularly when he couldn’t shake the feeling that Black Badge was dangerous.

“Mom, it’s fine. I pretty much expected his rejection. I just didn’t want to die wondering you know”?

For all his shy, nervous and rambly traits, her son was one of the bravest people she knew which was why she was puzzled that he was having so much trouble explaining his fear of leaving. It was time to help Jeremy along, to air things before sepsis set in.

“Interesting statement, son. You didn’t want to die wondering. So why are you so hesitant to leave for college”?

Jeremy should’ve known that his mom would cut straight to the heart of things. She ‘got’ him in a way that was unforced, natural and required no effort from either of them. Unlike every other social interaction he had ever experienced.

“I’m what now”? He stumbled out.

“I get it. I really do. But it’s time Jeremy. You have people you need to meet, things you need to find out, things you need to contribute outside of these four walls. I am not going anywhere. My work is not going anywhere. But you are. Then, if you want, you can come home and report all you’ve learned. If you stay, you’ll stagnate Jeremy, and no Mother wants that for their children. It’s time to leave, it’s time to ride or die!”

Despite his mother’s attempt to lessen the emotion of the moment by offering up her hands in an awkward ‘rock on’ gesture, Jeremy had felt tears stinging his eyes. He’d felt way too old for it, but he hugged her as hard as he could manage as if the limited strength of his arms could stop her from fluttering away.

There was no escaping it. He would be going to college in a few short weeks. He would do as his mother instructed. He would meet, learn, contribute and report back. The picture of a dutiful son. His mom would always have his back.

Except that she didn’t. His whole life it had only been the two of them. Jeremy and his Mom v. ‘The World’. And then it had just been Jeremy. ‘The World’ hadn’t noticed the difference.

The accident happened on the drive to campus, his few belongings packed away in a rented trailer. He’d set out on the ride of a lifetime and come away with nothing but pain and death.

Jeremy had noticed his mother’s haunted look grow deeper as his leaving date grew nearer and he knew her well enough that it was the work and not his impending absence that was causing it. He had resolved to confront her about it on the drive but he doesn’t remember if he did. He will never remember.

Six months of memory following his mother starting the car engine that day was absent. He was told stuff about it later, words he didn’t want to hear. ‘Car accident’, ‘trapped’ ‘extensive damage’, ‘killed on impact’, ‘complex surgery’, ‘metal plates’, ‘physiotherapy’, ‘expensive treatment’. They told him he’d been trapped with her for three days before the car was found. That he was incomprehensible with the pain of his injuries and dehydration. In truth he was broken in body and soul.

He never made it to college. He had never left Black Badge, being recruited straight from the hospital to study with their best scientists. He owed them after all. They’d arranged for his treatment and paid for his recovery. He learned the truth about his mother’s work. A fundamental truth about the world that college could never provide. That supernatural phenomena were more than just bedtime stories he had read in comics with his mother. The world was a far bigger and scarier place than he thought possible.

And now he was finally fulfilling a part of his mother’s wish, he was leaving her. He was going to meet new people and contribute to something bigger than himself. But he was doing it while being tied to Black Badge, as tied to them now as his mother was then.

It was time to report back, just like he promised.

“Oooooooh….. So much has happened in the last week Mom. It’s been kinda scary but…” Jeremy hesitated again. “It’s also been the most awesome thing ever”! His voice was suddenly animated, his body leaping up from the camp chair. He was taking tiny paces up and down worrying a patch of snow down to sodden grass. His hands trying to leap ahead in the story by frantically waving with pent up excitement.

“There was an actual honest to goodness infiltration at the office! These...people came to rescue Dolls. I hadn’t even realised he was back but apparently he’d done something to get up Lucado’s nose and he was going to get shipped out to Black Rock, you know, the bad kind of shipped, Mom, not the fun romantic kind where Dany jumps Jon and then the fandom is blessed with Jonerys... Hey do you think I should maybe take Dolls out to dinner one day, thank him for looking out for me the last few years? Would our ship name be Dollemy or Jerolls?” He’d started to ramble again.

“But right, you don’t want to hear me go on and on about him. Again. Um, so there was this agent from Scotland Yard who sounded like a cosplaying Pippa Middleton and we may have, sorta, kinda, accidently let a Hala demon loose in the lab which set off every alarm in the place.” Jeremy unconsciously rubbed the back of his head. He could still feel the bump left behind by Waverly’s unsuccessful attempt to knock him out.

“Then she dropped her accent faster than Tom Cruise in ‘Far and Away’, and was like, ‘I’m not from Scotland Yard, my name is Waverly and I’m here with my sister and THE Doc Holliday. We need to save Dolls, will you helps us?’” Jeremy was more animated than ever, acting out an overly dramatic version of ‘scared Waverly’ for the benefit of the story.

“I know Mom! THE DOC HOLLIDAY was somewhere nearby trying to get Dolls! I mean, how could I refuse”? Knowing the system would show it was his login that breached security, Jeremy had reached peak ‘ride or die’ in the excitement, and he was all-in.

“Waverly’s kind of a bad-ass, Mom. She’s got some kind of scary teacher look or something ‘cos she had the demon frozen in place like it was afraid of her. Then her super bad-ass sister put it down with a literal magic gun. And then we were running and running and we managed to get to the service lifts and then…well…”

Jeremy’s excitement faded as he debated whether or not to tell her the next part. It kind of wouldn’t make sense, why he was moving away, if he didn’t though. All the animation and excitement left his body. He dropped back into his camp chair, forcing his body to remain still as he chose his next words more carefully.

“...and then there was Moody.”

Jeremy remembered how much his mom hated Moody. “Never a more fitting name…” she used to mumble under her breath.

Jeremy paused for a moment. “Mom, I was so scared, way more scared than when the demon was loose in the lab. People are the scariest things on earth, you know? I didn’t know what was going to happen, I mean, I had betrayed Black Badge and thrown in with a bunch of strangers all on the promise of saving Dolls…” It sounded ridiculous now he actually said it out loud. Why had he instinctively trusted these people when Black Badge had rebuilt him after the accident, fed and sheltered him, educated him and forced him to work for them every day since, one nefarious project after another. Maybe it made more sense than he first thought.

“Moody was sooooo pissed! At everyone, even Lucado. He was all like ‘Revenants are the least of your problems. There’s new trouble in Purgatory and you’ll patrol the Ghost River Triangle on behalf of Black Badge. All of you.’ and he included me too. Lucado shouted ‘Someone has to pay’ and Moody said ‘Someone will.” and then he….he shot someone. Right in front of me.”

Jeremy suddenly felt so tired. The woman had been vaguely familiar to him, he was pretty sure she had worked with Dolls but he didn’t really know her. The others didn’t seem to know her well either which just made him feel even sadder about it.

“I guess Moody needed to show the power Black Badge has, a demonstration to remind us how tiny we all are?” His voice briefly took on a quieter tone as he admitted the last thread of the story to his mom. “We all had to sign a blood pact. I KNOW! I KNOW! But it didn’t really feel like there was a choice! We signed or it was pretty clear that Moody would ‘lay us all to rest’ right then and there, if ya know what I mean. So I signed. And Waverly signed, her sister and Doc Holliday. And then they went home to Purgatory. Without Dolls. I mean, I think he escaped? But no one knows where he is…”

Jeremy finally trailed off. He sat quietly for a minute beginning to feel an overwhelm of emotion. A lot had happened. A lot. And now he had told his mom, the only person he could share his feelings with even though she wasn’t really there. But he had an unsettling feeling that his mom was disappointed with him. The weight of it was stifling.

For the first time in a week, Jeremy was sitting still, not quite ready to continue the story, not quite ready to tell her that as part of the blood pact, Lucado was taking him to Purgatory to be the ‘science guy’ for the Earp sisters demon hunting team. Not quite ready to tell her how excited he was to finally be in the field, leaving her behind.

Contemplating his next words, Jeremy was startled, but somehow managed to remain still when it touched him. The sudden appearance of colour in a world of black clothing and bright white snow was arresting.

“ _By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth_!” Jeremy was mesmerised.

“ _Vanessa atalanta…_ ” his internal dictionary quickly recalled the correct latin nomenclature for the large red, black, and white butterfly which had landed with a weighty plop on top of his hand.

Red Admiral butterflies were often seen throughout Autumn but it really had no right to be there. Winter had well and truly arrived with the last dumping of snow and it was far too cold for its delicate wings to be pumping slowly up and down, waving a mystical hello designed only for Jeremy.

It’s thorax and abdomen were covered in the longest, softest hairs he had ever seen. They reflected the wintery sunlight back at him, conveying varying warm shades of golden brown. The dorsal wings were a bright cacophony of brilliant, warning red and pure white spots juxtaposed with black velvety border patterns ringing each wingtip. As the wings pumped up, Jeremy could see the ventral view, the bright colours disappearing into hues of brown camouflage, looking like nothing more than leaf litter about to scatter to the wind. It’s wings never stopped moving, slowly, deliberately up and down, exposing the bright warning to predators above, then hiding away from danger below.

“ _You don’t belong here… just like me._ ” Jeremy sighed in thought.

“ _Awwwww, man. I don’t belong in the field. I’m just a butterfly. Standing out like a sore thumb, or hiding away, unnoticed, camouflaged and invisible. Ridiculous, overengineered, floaty and far too delicate. Pointless and unnecessary._ ”

Jeremy felt the familiar creep of uncertainty overtake him. He had failed his firearms test four freaking times. He would be a hazard in the field. It would be an absolute shitshow. Sometimes, when you choose to ride, it’s other people that end up dying. He didn’t want to be the cause of that, the memory of the body left on the floor as he signed that contract in his own blood still fresh in his memory.

Balanced on six legs moving independently of each other, the butterfly turned on Jeremy’s hand. He could feel the slight grab and drag of the grip of each leg as it moved on his skin. The butterflies head tilted almost quizzically at him. Jeremy could make out each eye darting forward and back before fixing him in a stare. It’s long proboscis curled out and in again on itself, as if tasting Jeremy’s anxiousness on the air. “ _Oh my god_ ” Jeremy thought, “ _You can read minds?! It’s angry! I’m being judged by a butterfly…No. I’m being judged by..._ ”

“Mom?” Jeremy whispered.

Jeremy could hear his mother’s voice, using that unique tone of admonishment reserved only for him. “ _I am your mother. Now you listen to me!_ ” Jeremy’s eyes widened. It had been so long since his internal monologue had taken his mother’s tone he immediately felt chagrined, small like a child again.

“ _Who taught you to think such thinks about yourself? I raised you think for yourself and find ways to help others. You are the expert in the room, the only one who can find a solution by making two and fifteen add together to make twenty one. You should be asking yourself, ‘what would Doctor Strange do’? Are you going to wallow in self pity or use your unique skills and expertise for good? I told you it was time to go years ago. So go. Do good things. Then come back one day and tell me all about it. It’s time to ride or die son. You said it yourself._ ”

It was exactly the sort of thing his mother would’ve said to him. It was exactly what he needed to hear. The more he contemplated the delicate creature resting on his hand, the more enveloped he felt in the memories of his mother’s love. Even if he knew it was just his mind talking to itself (wasn’t it?). She wasn’t really there, talking to him through the medium of butterfly…(‘Cos that would be ridiculous. Right?).

He contemplated the traits of butterflies again, this time from is mother’s perspective.

“ _She’s right. I can be a bright warning delivered just in time, I can be camouflage keeping people safe from harm. Like butterfly wings, my influence may be small but who knows what bigger effects it may have. I can break out of this chrysalis and be transformation personified. I may only have a short amount of time to make a difference so I better ride or die like a butterfly. Holy Shit! I am Butterfly Man!_ ”

Jeremy laughed aloud at the thought.

Startled, the butterfly chose that moment to take off. It fluttered around Jeremy’s face for a few seconds, delicate wings giving his cheeks real-life butterfly kisses, seemingly in approval of his conclusion. Jeremy couldn’t help the large grin that grew on his face as the creature fluttered gently on it’s way.

“You’re right Mom. I can do this! I love you, I… I miss you so much...”

He raised an arm, his hand making ‘rock-on’ devil horns. “Ride or die like a butterfly!” A look of determination settled on his face as the butterfly disappeared from view. “I’m ready. I’m ready to go.”

“Bye Mom.”

Jeremy stood up, tripped over his laces and fell face first in the snow.

“Awesome.”

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I have no idea if the bass drops in Kanye tracks but I couldn’t bring myself to listen to any of his music to fact-check after I thought of the line. He’s just such a… dumbass!
> 
> And I’m not saying the butterfly thing is real. Dead relatives can’t come back with messages for the living borne on the backs of butterflies. This totally didn’t happen to me IRL last week. Nope.


End file.
